The Mayans MC Snitch

You may have become vaguely aware in recent weeks that a television program called Mayans MC debuts tonight on FX at ten in every time zone, except maybe Hawaii, and it is 66 minutes long without commercials. You may not have heard that the show’s leading character is a Drug Enforcement Agency snitch.

Spoiler alert!

Oh?! Oops! I guess I was supposed to say that before I said that the show’s leading character, a Mongols – excuse me, Mayans – prospect named “Easy” Reyes – you know, like “Easy Rider” – is a DEA snitch. Snitch, snitch, snitch, snitch, snitch. Oh well. Too late now.

You have undoubtedly already heard that the show is great art; or rather you have been force fed like you are a Strasbourg goose the notion that this is “the next chapter in Kurt Sutter’s award-winning Sons of Anarchy saga.”

Sutter is also widely regarded as being insightful about the motorcycle club world. He has tattoos. He has employed Sonny Barger. He has purchased beautiful, custom motorcycles from Rusty Coones. He has an indoor pool filled with hundred dollar bills. His hot tub bubbles Single Malt Scotch. He is a Twitter tough guy.

Sutter’s partner in this creative endeavor is the incomparable Xicon film maker El Jeen Hahmez (formerly known as Elgin James).

Geography Lesson

The Mayans, after whom the series is named, are cynical drug dealers, as some Entertainment Industry executives may be described as cynical, only without the self-deprecating irony and gentle humor for which Entertainment Industry executives are famous. Their motorcycles are mostly for show. They smuggle drugs hidden in quinceanera dresses for a syndicate called the Galindo Cartel. And they get bossed around by the cartel boss’ son, an Ivy educated jackass named Miguel Galindo.

Easy’s back story is that he was all set to go to Stanford before he got jammed up and flipped. The show is set in a town called Santo Padre which is understood to be the twin cities of Calexico and Mexicali where the first season of Mayans MC was filmed. Calexico is on the Yankee side of la linea and Mexicali is south of the border. Calexico, with a population of about 40,000 is really just a suburb of Mexicali which is about 20 times as large. The cities straddle the border, 125 miles east of San Diego.

Snitches

A show about an undercover informant joining a motorcycle club could be interesting in the hands of film makers who are slightly less self-important and clueless than Sutter and Hahmez. Mel Gibson wanted to make a movie about William Queen. Tony Scott wanted to fictionalize Jay Dobyns.

Gangland Undercover, a television series Mayans MC seems to have broadly plagiarized, was based on the memoir of a snitch named Ashley Charles Wyatt, also known as Charles Falco. Gangland Undercover tried to grab the Sons of Anarchy audience in 2015 and failed but it did succeed as drama in a way that Mayans MC probably will not.

The Falco portrayed in that series was nothing like the real Falco. The television character was actually someone interesting. That character was aware he was playing a role and he portrayed the feelings someone with a soul who got themselves into that situation might actually feel. He was scared when the Vagos he was betraying turned out to be dangerous men. He was touched and felt guilty when they turned out to be generous men. The Falco character in Gangland Undercover was very aware that he was just making things up as he went along.

To date , Sutter has never demonstrated that kind of artistic humility and Hahmez seem to be an even more deluded egomaniac that Sutter.

Post Truth

So far in his career Sutter has seemed not to care that he is just making things up as he goes along. Like so many celebrities in post truth America, he insists that his audience admire the beautiful inanities he pulls out of his ass.

The opening scene of Mayans anticipates the sort of self-reverential, cut rate postmodernism audiences can expect to see for the next six or seven years.

The camera’s eye moves from a slogan scribbled on a wall, “divided we fall,” to a hungry dog gnawing on a dead crow. (You know, the Sam Crow. Get it? Nudge, nudge. Get it?) Then prospect Easy appears, riding alone on his motorcycle. Subtle, huh?

Like Cows?

This isn’t the sort of thing writers invent, let alone writers who know anything or who actually have stories to tell. These are the sorts of images television executives invent. For all his social media braggadocio, Kurt Sutter seems to turn into an ingratiating puddle of goo whenever somebody offers him money and praise.

Who could know better what a mass audience wants motorcycle clubs to be than a television executive with access to hundreds of volumes of audience research and focus group reports? So, you might enjoy Mayans MC.

Do you enjoy long, romantic, moonlight walks in feed lots? Do you like how your boots smell after?

Before you get your hopes up, though, you might want to remember that the executives who are really writing this thing are calling it “the next chapter in Kurt Sutter’s award-winning Sons of Anarchy saga.” Remember that ten years ago, they called that motorcycle melodrama Hamlet. And, remember all that green paper in that big, dry, indoor swimming pool.

Prior to mind-kontrol tel-lie-vision, most people possessed critical thinking abilities. Today, many people think other people’s thoughts, while thinking the thoughts are their own. If you feel the need to dispute word definitions, write to the dictionary publishers.

mind control? shit we are giving this show a lot of credit. it is going to control people minds and how they think, it is going to taint juries and send innocent people to jail WOW. lets not worry about the shootings of each other and the killing of civilians it will be this fucking tv show that brings us all down hell it is a fucking tv show that will probably not be on that long and if it is so what.
we are the ones who are going to bring this lifestyle to the ground with all of the shit that we do and how it gets reported not this mind controlling tv show.
the government would like to legislate motorcycles into extinction with ethanol, noise regulations,etc. but lets spend our time and energy on a 2nd rate tv “program”

Funny how I’ve never seen a patched Jew, yet SOA had kike leads. Now we have a nog militant and a drama queen(r) to once again tell the squares the ‘troof’ about only their previous wet dreams had dared. We can only hope another of those #metoo tramps points a finger, or whatever else got sticky at Sutter and shut this waste of celluloid down

well shooting at a car full of people {as a prospect in the kinfolk incident} has to be as good for a jury as watching Son’s or the Mayans, don’t ya think? Tv may be a bunch of trash but real life is not that far removed in this case.

The minute the show went into a story about kidnappimg kids and the cartel guys wife I said fuck this, here we go again. When the snitch part popped up I was like no fuckin way, and I’ll tell you why. Everyone is saying this is based on the mongols and now portrayed as snitches and cartel bitch boys. Sutter is just looking for trouble. Or is it a little funny that they’re in green, working the Mexicali/Calexico type story where the vagos have a foothold in, and everyone is thinking its a story about one team when in reality it’s about another ……

I just recently watched SOA, and I agree with you. The show is about as close to reality as Rambo III where he downs a helicopter with a bow and arrow. I watched it with an open mind, but the plots and sub-plots are so numerous and fucking ridiculous I tapped out after season 2.

You all seem to be forgetting one of maybe the top TV shows of recent times that could have been based on crips/bloods (with name changed of course)…. The Wire

White Witch: Sure they will. “Breakfast where the news is read/ Television children fed/ Jim Morrison. Nothing has changed.When I can buy a Mayan’s cut on line from Sutter Industries you’ll know the illusion is complete…

The original Perlman was Scott Glenn. Scott Glenn had been in either one or more 60’s era biker movies. Glenn could ride. Thing was, Glenn “supposedly” didn’t have the stomach for Sutter. The reason for the haphazard cast changes was not so much that Sutter wanted to keep it interesting, but he wanted to copy how Frank Darabont was producing “Walking Dead”- “jump how high when I say how high you jump” and Glenn was either too professional or not hungry enough to put up with Suttter’s shit.

There is a work print out there with Glenn in a complete 45 min pilot. It’s still unwatchable shit.

The original Perlman was Scott Glenn. Scott Glenn had been in either one or more 60’s era biker movies. Glenn could ride. Thing was, Glenn “supposedly” didn’t have the stomach for Sutter. The reason for the haphazard cast changes was not so much that Sutter wanted to keep it interesting, but he wanted to copy how Frank Darabont was producing “Walking Dead”- “jump how high when I say how high you jump” and Glenn was either too professional or not hungry enough to put up with Suttter’s shit.

There is a work print out there with Glenn in a complete 45 min pilot. It’s still unwatchable shit.

This show is propaganda for prosecutors. It spreads the idea that motorcycle clubs are the Mafia on wheels, that they have nothing to do with brotherhood and are mostly profit driven, that they reward patch holders for killing cops and that undercover agents and informants are heroes. I have covered a lot of trials. I’ve read a lot of indictments. I believe jurors see what they have been programmed to see and believe what they have been prepared to believe. And, defense lawyers are often bad at their job and they are way out-resourced.

Sutter and FX would never make this show if the characters were bloods, crips or MS.They feel perfectly entitled to make this show about a motorcycle club.

@Cap’n Bill -yep, lol ‘Häagen-Dazs!’ He also said somebody else ‘a famous actor’ was supposed to play Clay Morrow, but the guy was too subtle or something like that LOL. Sure wish I knew who that was. I’ve said it many times, Rebel’s ‘Waiting For SAMCRO’ is one if the funniest things I’ve ever read.

It is still just a TV show. Watch or don’t watch. does anyone really think that this show will change or influence anyone’s opinion of bikers. most people have already formed their opinion of us one way or another. bikers in the news shooting at each other and killing innocent civilians does more damage than a fucking TV show.
everyone should point their anger and frustration at the bikers who are profiting off this show. They sold out the lifestyle for a few bucks.

I don’t know what the problem is here its television, every tv show every movie does the same thing they try to portray something. I watch a show called Blue Bloods Danny solves every big case in NYC….New York city how fucked up is that ? the point is it’s just entertainment. You could always watch the history channel or animal planet those shows are closer to reality. We know know MC life is nothing like what they show, not even close

Well, the folks at the Mayans are NOT warm and fuzzy an to some extent likable like the crew at SOA. At least they showed up for a cameo to spread the love.
Dark and Mad Max Esque, an MC Burning Man. Of course I’ll watch it…..
NOW I get the Dead Crow metaphor. Rebel, your good….

Well, the folks at the Mayans are NOT warm and fuzzy an to some extent likable like the crew at SOA. At least they showed up for a cameo to spread the love.
Dark and Mad Max Esque, an MC Burning Man. Of course I’ll watch it…..

I was in a military club for eight years. Then the show Sons of Anarchy came out. We had a lot of young guys coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. Next thing you know we got all these young guys wanting to wear white tennis shoes. I hate that freaking show!

I understand that this might not be some people cup of tea but from a purely entertainment interest of view it was entertainmening. I enjoyed it he bikes the scenery and the clubhouse lol.
I don’t see it as a representative of my biker life style just like all of he over the top war movies didn’t portray any conflict I was in.
I will watch be entertained for a hour and move on

I’ve been amazed at the positive responses to the show on Latino biker Facebook pages, here’s a tv show portraying our culture and in particular Latino sections of our culture as low life’s and they’re lapping it up. Weird.

I knew Mayans was on the tube tonight, couldn’t wait for it. Sat down remote in my hand smile on my face, then hit the remote.. garage door opened, turned the key and the ride fired right up, spent a couple hours out had a good ride, didn’t miss not seeing Mayans at all.

Those that actually believe in this crap live in their mother’s basements and in their own alternative reality. Nothing anyone can say or write will change that. At some point these people will tire, wearing themselves out, becoming nothing more than flecks of detritus, tossed about in the hot Santa Ana winds.

Did he really change his name to ha mez? My grandma of sorts changed her middle name to sunshine in the early 70s, hey whatever it’s the bay. But ha mez? Trying too hard to be somebody. Doesn’t even grasp what somebody might be.

From the beginning Sutter was a sociopath who took advantage of what the media perceived as his associations and then used that to paint a broad brush. The only pieces I ever saw of his previous “work” could be condensed to the following: (1)GUNS ALL BAD (2)Clubs = Gangs (3)having a wardrobe department that could fit his post menopausal wife into tight outfits meant she was OWED an award.

I spoke to people who road for the actors most of the first three seasons either primary or stunt. Their experience with Sutter was that he liked to have large anger filled blow ups, threaten to fire people, he liked trick bags, he used a position of power to be immensely unprofessional and if called on it- you were “written out” or told to “nut up because this method acting- this is how a real club works”.

Sutter had a blowup with his lead actor at an awards event where they had shouting match over which one was “P” now.

I know first hand that one of the former leads would not ride a bike, not learn to ride a bike, actually had a film and voice-over career and had contractual safety riders. The person commented in a moment of rare candidness that the whole experience was nightmarish.

So is new guy going to be Othello, with the club subbing for Iago, and whoever the blonde future MeToo#er with the unbuttoned blouse going to be whoever the tragic female was in Othello ?